Roger
by myrmidryad
Summary: This is like a written version of the dramatic monologue I did in my English class for speaking and listening. Got an A*, which is pretty amazing, and I was really proud of it. It's like a little speech by Roger a while after the island. Creepy and dark.


Before leaping in, pause a moment. Paint a picture in your mind with words. Imagine yourself, first. Perhaps you are a medical student, watching a video recording of a mad boy's last record. Perhaps you are another boy, sitting in a classroom and watching as the dark classmate who doesn't talk much, but carries a black aura around him like a cloak, sits at the front and talks. Perhaps you are a radio jockey, interviewing one of the miracle children saved from an island in the tropics no one had heard of.

Perhaps you are simply a part of the boy's mind, detached and watching silently from a point outside of his body. It is up to you. Choose now, and paint the picture.

Imagine now the boy. Dressed as a properly brought up British boy should be, in grey summer shorts, white shirt, high socks and sandals. No cap covers this boy's dark shock of wiry hair, hanging low over a face with eyes that glare out from an inner darkness. He sits in a chair, hands by his sides, waiting for you.

Listen – he is beginning.

"My name is Roger." He says in a dull voice. "I'll be thirteen next week.

"It was a week ago that I saw my father for the first time since I went away to sing. He looked smaller than I remembered. Weaker. Less powerful." He sounds almost surprised, but not quite. It will take more than a change in his parent to surprise this boy.

"We ate together – roast beef." His mouth twists, and he spits out the words like a curse. "The food here hurts my stomach. I'm used to fruit, sticky and sweet, straight off the branch, and pig meat, dripping with fat and so hot it burns the roof of your mouth so you can't even talk. Not like the slabs of pale animal they give you here." Disgusted.

His voice turns dull again as he continues. "He ate, lectured me about life, and then left. He's always away. He's a banker. A _banker_!" He shouts in a sudden burst of fury. "What does he know of life? He can't hunt! Can't dance! Can't sing! He could never kill!" His eyes turn cold and smug and cruel.

"Not like I can kill."

He lounges back in his chair, the hands that had been clenched into fists relaxing. His tone is bored and offhand now as he continues. "I went to the beach yesterday. We live by the sea, and no one's home in the holidays, so I can do what I want. There was a boy by the sea." His eyes turn thoughtful, remembering. "He looked like Henry from the island. I knew all their names. He was in my place on the beach. I threw stones, and this time," He snarls, "I didn't aim to miss.

"He cried like a baby," He sneers, "and ran off to his mummy. The beach was mine." His expression turns almost confused. "But I didn't want it anymore." He pauses, looks at his knees, still frowning.

His expression clears as he looks up, and his voice becomes matter-of-fact. "I still had some stones left; so on the way home I threw them at Mrs Lewis' cat." He grins maliciously. "It didn't half yell. When I got home there was a woman waiting for me. She didn't say so, but I knew she was from the school. They think I don't know." He is glaring from under his unruly mop of hair now, angry and fuming at the world. "They think I'm stupid, just because I'm quiet, and keep to myself.

"Well I'm not stupid!" He shouts, his temper breaking out in an angry flash. "I know exactly what games they're playing!" The fury seems to recede slightly, and he leans back in his chair again, looking out of the window to his left.

"She asked questions. Lots and lots of stupid questions. I didn't answer. I just looked out of the window and ignored her. After a while, she went away." His lip curls in derision, and then his tone turns pensive.

"A question stuck with me though – Did I kill Piggy on purpose, like Ralph said?" He wonders, then his face darkens.

"_Ralph_.

"I _hate_ Ralph." His lips curl up again, this time in a ferocious snarl that would seem out of place on any other young boy, but somehow not on this one. He looks out of the window again, frowning.

"Did I kill Piggy on purpose? I'm not even sure now. It was all such fun at the time." He grins gleefully at some remembered game. "Such good fun. Proper fun. Real, decent, _island_ fun. I wish I could go back." He sighs almost wistfully, the pale light from the window lighting his pale face. "I miss it. I miss everything about it. I even miss Jack!" He laughs without humour. "There's something I thought I'd never say!"

He sighs thoughtfully and smirks. "Yes, I miss Jack Merridew. He was a good chief, with his hunting and feasts and fun. Even if he didn't know how to do some things. Like with Samneric." He smiles cruelly, shadows pooling in his eyes. "I knew how to deal with them. Joined quick after I dealt with them, they did." He grins darkly, not showing any teeth.

"They were fun." His voice is low, sinister with its dark satisfaction. "Brothers are always fun. Better than _best_ friends even!" His eyes light up, and he lowers his voice and leans forward as if to share some secret. "You see," He whispers, "the thing about _brothers_ is, if you have both, and you hurt _one_, the _other_ one will do _anything_ to make you stop. Anything at all." He smiles. "Brothers will do anything for each other in a tight spot."

The smile turns to a sneer and he looks out of the window. "It's not just blood." He turns back, disgust written in every contour of his face. "It's the _proper British thing to do_."

He turns back to the window with a snort of derision. "I hate it here." He growls. "Always cold and wet, and grown-ups everywhere. I miss the island. I miss Jack.

"I wonder if he'll still be head chorister back at school." His eyebrows rise, a twitch of surprise as a new thought occurs to him.

"I wonder if he'll even _be_ at school." The idea seems to astound him, and then he sinks lower in his chair, already used to it, and bored.

"His parents are rich," He mutters, "they might send him somewhere else.

"I'd like to go somewhere else. Anywhere. No," He changes his mind with a frown, "not just anywhere. I know where. I'll run away!" He straightens eagerly. "Back to the –– no." He slumps back, moody and sullen again. "I can't. The island's got no one on it now, and it's all burnt up anyway. Ralph's fault." He forces the name out like a bad word. "I _hate_ Ralph. Him and Piggy, with their stupid rules, and the fire, and _'What'll the grown-ups think?'_ He raises his voice in a crude imitation of the dead boy, and then laughs, slightly hysterically, his next words a shout:

"Bollocks to the grown-ups! Bollocks to the rules! At least Jack got that right!" His eyes are alight with a strange fervour as he clenches his hands into fists, mind whirring with new plans.

"I'll run away. They're lowering the recruitment age for the war again, and I'm getting taller. They don't care so much anymore." He laughs bitterly. "As long as you have hands to hold a gun, or a knife. Jack would be one of those blazing out front. Not me." The light dims, not extinguished, but cunningly hidden. "I'll stay back, behind the lines.

"They'll bring back prisoners, see," He smiles darkly, "and when they do…I'll be there. I'll get everything out of them." His voice is so low, you have to strain to hear it now, and the atmosphere of the growing dark is making you shiver. "Everything we need," He continues, seeming to know of your discomfort and grinning at it, "and everything we don't. It'll be easy. After all," His face twists into a black parody of a smile.

"I know the way."

* * *

Dark and creepy enough? Review and tell me!


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